Jen Tales

After a few posts of mommy blog, I'm starting to feel reminiscey again. (For those of you who prefer the mommy blog, sorry . . . I just don't take enough non-blurry pictures to make it worth anyone's while, nor have I found it in me yet to read the instruction manual for the camera.)

And who's better to reminisce about than our one and only Jennie, who's (squee!) opening her mission call tonight?!!!!

Now, there is a plethora of material I could share about Jennie, but I have decided to limit it to just a few benign stories. I was actually struggling a bit to think of stories, which is really weird because Jennie's the funniest, nicest person I know, so there should be plenty to say. Luckily, thanks to my habit of using Facebook as a family history tool, I was able to pop over to our wall-to-wall and find a few stories to quench the brainstorming drought.

Good times with those Barbies. She and Kiana played way more seriously than Leslie and I ever did. There were even social workers. (Kaylie, did you ever play Barbies with any of us? I don't think she did. Maybe that's why she was always the peacemaker.)

Those were always a disappointment. Always.

No, Jennie, you shouldn't be thanking mom! I was the one who got the water for you, after all!

So there you have it. Three little vignettes about soon-to-be Sister/Hermana/Schwester/Cectpa Moon. Wherever you go, the people will be so blessed!

oh, and the rest of my family . . . mission call or no, you will get the spotlight sometime. Forewarned is forearmed.

Our new puppy!

 We have recently found ourselves in possession of an adorable, playful puppy! Don't tell our landlord.

Actually, you can go ahead, because he probably knows. Our puppy is in fact human, and we've had him for 9 months now.

Over the past several months, I've given many animal nicknames to Joseph -- baby bird for how he would open his mouth for food; little frog for how he would stick his tongue out and kick his legs; little lamb for how he would hit his head on my chest when he wanted to eat; and baby bear for how he would growl.

But I think puppy is the most apt description yet. You name it, he does it.

Tip the trash can over? Check. Make messes on the furniture? Check. (This one could probably have been prevented had his diaper been attached better, but it's become basically impossible to hold him down long enough for a diaper change these days.)

Crawl up to Dad while he's eating breakfast, look at him with big brown eyes, and get a bite of his food? Check.

Bark at the squirrels? Check.

Chase after balls (or trains)? Check.

Try out new exciting teeth on flesh? Check. Ouch.

Yep, those teeth are definitely there.

Tear apart magazines? Check. Tear apart the house in general? Check.

Crawl around panting once he sees something desirable (forbidden) that Mom's left in a reachable location? Check. I know to be on my guard when I hear that happy pant now. Let out heartwrenching wails in the night when he realizes he's all alone? Check.

But he has other non-puppy tricks, too, like pulling himself up to standing on everything. (Except Mom's elastic skirt. That didn't hold him up so well. Luckily, he only pulled it down a few inches, and no one noticed.) When he's in standing position, he likes to bounce up and down, so we also call him Tigger. He claps, he listens to stories, he jabbers, he waits standing up in his crib for us to rescue him, and much, much more!

Despite all the repeated chasing and teething and babyproofing and realphabetizing the DVDs and continued not-entirely-restful nights, I think this has been my favorite month yet. After all, we get to enjoy sounds like this all the time.

Or like this:

Or, best of all, we get to play hide and seek now! Joseph absolutely loves it when I cover myself up with a blanket and he has to come crawl and discover me. Even better, though, is when he's the one hiding under the blanket and I have to go look for him. (fyi, this video didn't turn out as interesting as I wanted.)

Yep, I think we'll keep this puppy of ours. Even though he desperately needs a haircut.

So, what was up yesterday?

If you happened to click on my blog yesterday, you discovered that it suddenly became private! Why was that?

Well, I looked at my stats and saw that some URL from Belarus had visited. And that was really weird to me. Especially when I realized how incredibly shady the site was. I didn't like the idea of such sites having access to pictures of us (especially Joseph) so I just hid the whole thing.

According to my sister, though, who presumably knows about such things, it was just a spam bot that browses the interwebs leaving traces of where it's come from so people will click on the links when they check their stats. The bots don't actually look at the sites at all. Which is annoying but not as bad as I had feared.

But I'm still sort of debating a private blog. I would keep the rambling and reminiscing public but keep the pictures and adventures (except the most epic ones) private. I figure that anyone who reads this blog but doesn't actually know me (which is probably no one) wouldn't miss the sparse pictures and life updates, anyway. What are your thoughts? Are there extra cool ways all you mommy bloggers keep your identities safe?

The delicious rubber ducky

While the Toblers were here, Megan helped me give Joseph a bath. While we were getting the water ready, she said, "I hope you have a ton of bath time pictures."

I realized in dismay that I hadn't taken any pictures of Joseph in the bath since we had moved from Provo. Luckily, Megan was able to grab her camera and remedy the problem.

We love ducks and baths around here.

Meet me in Ann Arbor

This last Saturday, the Toblers came to visit us, braving bad weather on the drive up from Columbus. And we are so glad they didn't turn around! It was so great chatting with them, exploring downtown Ann Arbor with them, trying new restaurants with them, teasing them about Ohio State, making cookies with them, playing Michigan Jenga and Killer Bunnies with them, and then keeping them up obscenely late so they had no choice but to sleep in and come to Sacrament Meeting with us to hold Joseph some more. It was so fun!

While they were here, Megan caught some awesome pictures of Joseph. Here are some of my favorites.

I can't read his expression.

Playing with Brendan

I just love his hands in this.

So there were about a bazillion amazing bath time photos, but I decided to clump them all into a later post. This one  is my favorite, so it made the cut for this post.

He can be so solemn while he's clapping his hands.

Someday, I will figure out how to take pictures of us while we're exploring and eating yummy food and whatnot instead of just describing it in words, but at least Megan got pictures of Joseph! He's the most fun to take pictures of, anyway.

Children's Lit

Two weeks ago, we scoured secondhand shops in Ann Arbor for books. We had heard that books were a quarter or fifty cents, and we couldn't turn that down.

And you know, most of the books there really were worth a quarter or fifty cents. But we looked long and hard and came away triumphant. Ever since then, I've been devouring some of the books whole. Here's my take on them as an adult:

Boxcar Children: Guys, it still seems so fun to live in a boxcar and make your own little swimming pool. But what was the doctor thinking, letting them stay there after he knew their grandpa was looking for them??? I would have been so mad if I were the grandpa. Also, where did they use the bathroom?

Ella Enchanted: Still as awesome as always. Wow. As I read it I thought, "They should make a movie of this book!" And then I remembered that they did, and I got mad all over again.

Catherine, Called Birdy: Um, there's a lot more pregnancy in this book than I had remembered. I'd say it's definitely for older kids, but maybe it'd be okay for super naive kids like me, since we miss a lot.

A Long Way from Chicago: I liked this book more than I remembered. It's actually really funny.

Bloomability: Well, this book convinced me that we should go to Europe. So I think I liked it.

The Mouse and the Motorcycle: All that trouble to get Keith an aspirin. I guess they hadn't heard of Reye's syndrome back then.

Understood Betsy: This book rocked. It surprised me that over-parenting existed even in the 1910s. It is one of my favorite stories of self-empowerment and I think every young parent should read it, regardless of preferred parenting philosophy (ours is currently "keep Joseph alive").

Wow. That's a lot of girl books. And that doesn't even include all the Anne of Green Gables books I read/skimmed a few months ago and the Pride and Prejudice kick I'm currently on (book, Keira Knightley version, and Lizzie Bennet Diaries). I wonder if I'm just trying to channel my inner girl again after years in classes with mostly boys. I'll be honest, sometimes as I read, I thought, "I better have girls someday" because I just don't see Joseph getting into Ella Enchanted. What books do boys like, anyway? Hank the Cowdog?

Negative red

There's been something on my mind for the past little while that I've wanted to blog about. I think the best way to introduce it is to start at the beginning.

When I was 7, I went straight from 1st grade to 3rd grade with only a summer in between. I skipped 2nd grade entirely.

It wasn't really that uncommon in our district, come to think of it. I remember off the top of my head that Jessame, Dani, Leslie, Brooke, Mandy, Becca, and Ishmaal also skipped a grade. Possibly other kids as well. My mom and at least one of her siblings did, too. When there's no gifted and talented program, and not even Accelerated Reader at your school, that's kind of what you have to do to keep the smart kids from getting bored out of their minds.

I think the possibility of me skipping a grade had been open for a while. I was an early reader and loved to learn about pretty much everything. But I feel like what had cemented it was what I brought for show and tell  one day in 1st grade. Leslie and I had made up a joke a few days before. Since red plus yellow made orange, orange minus yellow made red. Therefore, yellow minus orange made, wait for it, negative red.

And it was the funniest joke ever to two little girls! "What's yellow minus orange? Negative red! Bahahaha." We told that joke back and forth all day. I decided to use one of the coveted pieces of poster board in the house to even diagram it. I made a chart with all the primary colors and described their addition and subtraction properties. I brought that poster in for show and tell and explained to the class what all the colors meant. "And right here, see, yellow minus orange equals negative red," I told them, trying not to laugh.

Blank stares. My smile faltered.

Shortly thereafter, it was time for parent teacher conferences. I seem to remember that they cut to the chase pretty quickly.

"We think Kyra should skip a grade."

The discussion veered that direction, talking about social aspects of it and would I fit in and should I start transitioning sooner to be with that class. Then they asked, "Well, what would you like to learn about?"

What would I like to learn? Goodness, what was left to learn? I knew how to read well. I knew how to add and subtract and tell time. I even knew what photosynthesis was because my teacher had taught it to us one day. Didn't I basically know everything about everything?

Then I realized I didn't. There was something I dealt with daily and didn't understand.

"Zippers."

"Zippers," they repeated. Yup. Zippers. After looking at me quizzically for a minute, they continued their big long conversation about the whole thing. I was already fairly young for my grade (spring birthday), I was the second smallest in my class (thank you Channing for being shorter), etc, etc, etc. I didn't really pay attention.

"Um, I thought of something else I want to learn about," I announced. "Fans."

"Oh, okay," they told me. And then I think the conference was over.





You know, I never did learn about zippers or fans in school. I had to look them up on Wikipedia.

Cupcakes

As promised, this post will be easy on the words. I'll fill it with as many single syllable words as possible.

Celeste came over. We made cupcakes. It was fun.

These were hers (ps props if you can name the equations):

These were Kevin's:

(The M and J are for Mark and Jana because we borrowed their sugar to make cupcakes. I think he made more than this but just ate them as he went. I think he said the one at the top is an Impressionistic sunset.)

These were mine (if you can tell what my equation is, you are very cool [and I'm not going to rotate the picture to make it easier because Picasa's not cooperating right now]):

And because I am still proud of them, here are cupcakes I made a year ago with Kim and Megan in Inca Villa (as you can see, I try to get points for creativity, not aesthetics):

The end.